Mid-19th Century French Flour Recreation?
I'm curious to see if anyone has specific thoughts on how best to recreate the experience of mid-19th century French flour — specifically for use in making period-correct brioche and waffles.
For a few years now, I've been using a ratio of 64% AP flour to 34% WW pastry flour to 2% rye. The rationale for this is that A. the protein content of their wheat would have been somewhere on the continuum of AP to pastry flour B. their bolting technique would have been excellent, though imperfect and C. no matter how well-tended a farmer's field was, crop control would not have been so rigorous as to entirely keep other grains out of the mix.
I've spent countless hours trying to research an even tighter approach than the one I use, and I'd love to hear any thoughts on how I could refine the ratios to better approximate the flour of the time period in question. The AP/pastry flour ratio is my biggest question mark. Especially if you happen to have any reference material or links that address this, I'd be grateful.
Thank you - Mr. Waffles
P.S. - My recipes are also all water (no milk) based and only use ale yeast. They're agonizingly period-specific.
It's a very interesting project you present, Mr. Waffles, and I think you've got a good working theory to arrive at an approximation of certain qualities of mid-19th century French flour. I have actually been living and working with a paysan boulanger in the southwest of France for the past several months, and he is a very old-school kinda guy, he does just about everything the old-fashioned way (he uses a gentle machine to knead the bread -- moving around 150 kilos of dough by hand is a little unmanageable), so perhaps my experience can be of some assistance. First of all, you are going to have difficulty getting the true spirit of the flour if you are buying store-bought flour. Unless you are buying local, chances are the flour is old and dead--it will serve to make bread but it will lack spirit and character. Additionally, most flours are coming from a single variety of wheat . . . traditionally, someone cultivating cereals would sow several varieties of wheat (in addition to rye or, like the peasant baker with whom I live, wild oats . . . literally). All that gets harvested and milled and sifted to a T80 (about 85% extraction), which leaves a flour relatively free of large bran particles but rich in germ. There is also of course going to be the occasional bit of wild oat flour and luzerne powder, but that's just all part of nature.
However, my teacher is using a stone-mill as opposed to a roller mill. The roller mill was introduced in the mid-19th century, long after the birth of the brioche, so I imagine that people must have been using the stone-milled stuff to make brioches before that. It's just about impossible to get a hyper "clean" flour (no germ, no bran) from a stone mill, as the stone mill pulverizes some of the germ and bran into the froment. For modern brioches, typically a very strong and very white flour is used in order to create a powerful gluten structure that can support the enormous and show-stopping rise of the brioche ; germ and bran will make for a lesser rise, normally. Additionally, we use a levain in our brioches at the peasant-bakery, as we do with all of our breads. We throw in a little bit of baker's yeast (just for the brioches).
The Larousse Gastronomique is a pretty good source for all things relating to French culinary tradition. You could also look into some of the works of Marie-Antoine Carême, a famous French pâtissier who would certainly have exercised no insignificant influence on 19th century French baking.
I think it would be interesting to up the quantity of WW Pastry flour for your recipes, as that will probably bring you to a closer approximation of what was available pre-roller mill era. Or, you could search high and low for 85% extraction flour and pay and arm and a leg for it. Keep us posted !
Thank you for your thoughts there. And indeed, store-bought flour has its many limitations. I definitely envision milling my own flour, at some point.
I like your idea of upping the WW amount. Any thoughts on the protein % of the final blend? From my research, it seems like French flour, up until the 19th century, was comparable in protein content to our American pastry flour. So I often wonder if even using AP flour, as I do, is a bit too edgy. Though the reason I use as much AP as I do is tied to where my interests lie, which is northeastern France and southern Belgium, which are both next to Germany, which would have had harder wheat.
It would be impossible to convey how deeply I've already looked into what Carême, Menon, Beauvilliers and others were doing back in the day. I wish I could just have a pound of fresh flour time travel from their kitchens, every week.
And that's interesting your boulanger uses a levain (which I assume you mean in the contemporary/sourdough sense) for brioche. Since Liège waffles (completely brioche based) are central to my obsession, I've studied old brioche recipes like a crazy person. I believe, by the 17th century, ale yeast was literally legislated by the guild(s) as acceptable for brioche, and certainly by the 18th century, that's all virtually anyone used; sourdough brioche was frowned upon. And there was no milk used in them either, unlike today. I stick to the old approach, too, when I just do brioche (and making kougelhopf, etc.). Quite extended fermentation times, too. Comes out almost cakey. It's sublime. But I digress...
Thanks again for your thoughts. I'm going to give the higher WW ratio a try.
Mr. Waffles
Carême
The Larousse Gastronomique is very extensive. It has preparation tips for Elephant, should the need arise.
When I lived in Paris in the early seventies there was a place near the Biblioteque National (the old one) which sold bush meat. I recall python, giraffe-neck steaks, camel, water buffalo, locusts and kudu on display in the window. I don't recall seeing elephant but it must have been there somewhere.